The present dissertation intends to investigate the syntactic nature and L2-acquisition of passive sentence structure in two Romance varieties, Italian and Spanish. First, I will present an analytic proposal couched within the Generative Approach (Chomsky, 1957, and subsequent work); from there, and following Perlmutter and Postal's (1977)…

An examination of some surface differences between quantifier phrases (QP) in standard Italian, Genoese dialect, and French is reported. The analysis makes specific reference to the distribution of empty noun phrase and adjectival phrase categories in SpecN, and uses the concept of inflectional rules. Although details have not yet been worked out,…

An analysis of the nature of secondary predicates takes a comparative approach, using Italian and English. Distributional properties and extraction facts are accounted for, and an explanation for the fact that resultatives are not allowed in Romance languages is sought on the basis of Italian evidence. It is argued that the semantic distinction…

All modern Romance languages except Rumanian have a class of causative + infinitive construction in which the infinitive subject surfaces as an agentive. This article investigates the question of how agentivization of the infinitive subject is to be handled in these languages. (DS)

This volume consists of the following papers delivered at the Fifth Linguistic Symposium on Romance Languages: (1) "The Heuristics of Substratum," by Dieter Wanner; (2) "The Auxiliary in Romance," by Frederick B. Agard; (3) "Lusitanian Portuguese," by Wayne J. Redenbarger; (4) "Paradigmatic Evolution of Diphthongs: Marsian Italian and Chicano…

This book represents, in part, the written record of the "Linguistic Symposium of Romance Languages: Application of Generative Grammar to Their Description and Teaching," held at the University of Florida, Gainesville, in February 1971. The aim of the Symposium was to bring forth contributions in the description of Romance languages, to draw…

Compares indirect "wh"-questions and independent relatives, points to the absence of a clear-cut boundary between these two types of construction, and argues for the indispensability of semantic and pragmatic analysis for syntactic theory. The article emphasizes that it is the answer to a question that supplies the determinate element…

Analyzes data on the acquisition of German by Italian and Spanish speakers. Findings reveal that children learning a first language and adults learning a second language build up syntactic structure in much the same manner, and propose that the weak continuity approach of language acquisition accounts for all instances of syntactic acquisition.…

The properties of one of the structures of politeness in the romance languages, the deference system connected with the use of conditional tenses, are analyzed in this paper. Although only Spanish examples are given, the conclusions also apply to French, Italian and Roumanian. The first part of the paper analyzes politeness in relation to its…

Focuses on the application of the Null Subject Parameter. Data reveals that some second-language learners exhibit knowledge that English is morphologically nonuniform yet still accept English null subject sentences. Findings disprove the Morphological Uniformity Hypothesis, indicating that any reformulation of the Null Subject Parameter must…